


Feathers of Amethyst

by bluetoast



Series: Birds of a Feather [63]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: John Winchester feels guilty, References to Addiction, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-02-03 00:29:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1724516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluetoast/pseuds/bluetoast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Winchester has done is best to not to think about Dean. It's been a dozen years since he saw him and with Sam and Adam not really communicating with Dean, it's almost easy. That comes crashing down around John on a trip to the library and sees whose name is on the non-fiction best seller list</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feathers of Amethyst

It was an odd thing. After his son Adam got married and moved to Louisville, it was as if Dean suddenly vanished from the world again. Not that John minded so much. He had spent the last several years trying to let himself let go – and he did a pretty good job of not thinking about Dean anymore. Since neither Sam nor Adam mentioned him, and neither of his daughter in laws, Kelly or Becca didn't either – it was easier. It also helped that when he went to their homes, there weren't any photographs of Dean or Liesel hanging on the wall.

John could almost convince himself that Dean no longer existed. 

That all came crashing down around him with a simple trip to the Windom Public Library.

He was there to pick up the audio book and a movie Kate had on hold. John managed to get stuck behind the woman with three kids – all of them with what looked like fifty books each. If the self check-out hadn't been out of order, he'd have used that. But, as it was, he was stuck in line and given what snatches of conversation he could hear from the library worker on the phone, it wasn't that bad. 

John shifted his items in his hands, glancing at the posting of the New York Time's Best Seller List. 

The fiction wasn't all that exciting – another piece of trash by Danielle Steel, something by James Patterson and his latest helpless 'assistant' writer, and the rest of the authors he didn't recognize. He glanced over at the non-fiction, the number one was something political sounding – and then he read the title of the number two book; _In Search of the Thunderous Silence_ – by Dean Coulter. The blurb underneath would tell the casual person very little, but to him it spoke volumes – _Dean Coulter tells the story of his life, overcoming abuse and prejudice to become one of the most accomplished gymnasts and doctors in the US._

“Sir?” The woman behind the counter snapped him from his thoughts. “You ready to check out?”

“What?” He shook his head and set the items on the counter. “Yes.”

“Sorry about the wait.” She took his card. “Is this all for you?”

“Yeah.” He glanced back at the best seller list. “That's it.”

*  
John knew he was setting himself up for torture when he drove to Barnes and Noble. You would think that Sam or Adam would have known about this. Then again, perhaps they had put Dean completely out of their lives. That was for the best. The less any of them thought about the – no, Dean wasn't a member of the family. He never had been. Dean had been a part of his life before his life got turned into a nightmare. He hated to put the blame on Sam, because it was not his fault either. But it seemed that there seemed there was life after Sam was born, life after Mary died, life after Azazel was killed – and before all that – was the dream time. 

Not that he'd ever tell Kate or Adam that either.

There was no excuse for what he did to Dean, he knew that. John accepted that and had tried to move on. He was currently sixteen years, three months, two weeks and four days sober. He'd been sober since the day after he and Adam drove Sam to Stanford. The last time he'd seen Dean.

On the way home, Adam had told him, flat out – that drinking made him act like an asshole. 

Bold words out of the mouth of an eleven year old. 

Words that he had heard before – nineteen years earlier out of the mouth of his first wife. 

Finding the book wasn't any trouble at all. It was right smack in the front with all the staff picks. John picked up the decent sized tome, staring down at cover. It was Dean's face in shadow – most likely a recent shot, the hint of a collared shirt was noticeable near the title at the bottom. He was looking down and a younger version of him was dangling from gymnastic rings, the tips of his toes making contact with the 'l' in 'Silence.' 

John took another deep breath and flipped open the back flap – another photograph of Dean, in this one he was wearing a suit and had his arms folded, but despite the business attire, he was smiling – the smile John could never forget. The smile that could melt the coldest heart. The smile that, through his own fault, had lost. He closed the book quietly and went to the counter. 

This was going to be torture. 

And John knew he deserved it.

*  
Dean called him Sir in the book. He was given no other name. Sam was called Little Brother. Mary was called Mommy. Even though he knew it was coming, it still struck him hard in the gut seeing Michael Coulter called Dad. 

That was agonizing. John couldn't understand it. He knew that was how it was – how he wanted it to be, but it was still painful. Reading about someone else gaining the title that he, like a fool, had thrown away. 

The book wasn't all painful – he remembered his own outrage at Dean getting his spot on the 2000 Olympic Team snatched away by some asshole judge. He could remember thinking that the judges had just lost the US a team medal by doing that. John cried when his once-upon-a-time son lost his wife and his struggles to be accepted despite the fact he was deaf. He felt a strange sort of pride when he read about Liesel winning a state-wide geography bee and laughed when Dean and her won a prize at a costume party for 'most ironic'. They had gone as Bela Karoli and Nadia Comaneci, stating the irony came from Dean not being able to understand much Romanian and Liesel not being able to do a back-flip. 

John had a feeling he shouldn't have sat and read it all in one sitting, but he did. He saved the photographs in the center for last, even though the temptation to look at them first had been strong. 

A few were easy to take – ones from his gymnastic competitions were impressive – and yet, they shamed John. If the man who told him that his eldest son was a weakling and that he should 'get rid of him' wasn't already dead, John might have gone and killed him. At eighteen, triumphing at the American Cup, Dean looked like he could pull the head off of a vampire bare handed. 

The one of Dean and Ignacia standing in a town square somewhere in Romania – that was sweet.

The one of baby Liesel – that was hard. 

Sam had no children and Adam didn't want any children.

Although strangely he harbored no ill will towards Michael Coulter for gaining the title grandpa. It stung a little, yes – but that was just how it was. 

The last photograph was of Liesel from this past Halloween. She was dressed as Sarah Jane Smith, whoever the hell that was. It wasn't the smile of a stranger on her face that made him start. Very little of the girl's face seemed familiar and then realized what it was that unnerved him. He couldn't be certain, due to the print quality – it was the hat Liesel was wearing.

He had to be imagining things – because there is no way on Earth that Liesel can be wearing the exact same hat his own father, Henry Winchester, was wearing the day he walked out of John's life forever.


End file.
